When you receive your FCA report, start with the purpose, summary and recommendations. Check that the report addresses the question agreed before the assessment and that you understand what it recommends.
You can ask for an explanation of wording or reasoning. You can also raise information you believe is inaccurate.
Check the important details
Look at identifying information, relevant dates, current support arrangements and the account of your activities. Check whether the report makes clear who supplied information and which activities were directly assessed.
A report may include difficult information, but that does not mean every description is necessarily correct. Equally, disagreement with a conclusion does not automatically establish an error. Explain the particular point you want reviewed rather than feeling you have to accept or reject the whole report.
Request a correction or clarification
Contact Seeds with the page or section, what you believe is wrong and any information that helps explain it. A wrong date, an omitted support arrangement and a disagreement about a clinical recommendation may require different responses.
Clinical conclusions must follow the evidence. They are not changed simply to obtain a preferred funding result. However, a misunderstanding, inaccurate information or relevant new evidence may justify reconsidering a conclusion. Independence means making that judgment fairly, not refusing to reconsider it.
Tell us within two days of receiving the report if something in it is wrong as a matter of fact, and we will amend it. There is no charge for asking for a correction. A request for correction should be distinguished from a new assessment of circumstances that changed later, which is new work.
Decide who needs the report
The report contains personal information. Share it for a clear purpose and check who needs access. A support provider may need relevant recommendations without needing every detail of your history.
Seeds needs appropriate consent or lawful authority to send the report to another person. Being the referrer or paying the invoice does not automatically establish that authority.
Use it with the other evidence
For an NDIS matter, check the submission process and any request for additional documents. The report contributes evidence; it does not itself lodge a plan-change request or guarantee a decision.
For another purpose, such as DSP, check whether the report addresses the relevant criteria. Further medical evidence or a different assessment may be needed.
When an update may be necessary
Do not rely on a general promise that an FCA remains current for two or three years. Requirements depend on the decision and the evidence requested. A report may still provide useful history while no longer describing current needs.
Before paying for another full assessment, identify what has changed or what is missing. Ask the receiving organisation and the assessor what would address that gap.